Trends Identified

Tackling Uncertainty Head-on

When planning for any organisation’s future, decision makers are faced with an increasingly complex and dynamic external environment. For some elements of this environment, such as demographics, it is possible to identify broad trends; while others, such as the turbulent geopolitics, are more challenging to predict. In considering an uncertain future and how best to position the organisation, scenario planning is a useful tool. By creating a series of ‘different futures’, based on the most significant but uncertain forces shaping our environment, decision makers are encouraged to re-examine their own assumptions about the future. The process results in individuals stepping away from the so often reactive, incremental strategic planning – a natural response to uncertainty – in favour of a more forward looking, proactive approach.

2016

Shaping the future

European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)

Systems to provide automated control of the state of vehicles and infrastructure

New technical methods and automated systems to monitor the state of vehicles and infrastructure and oversee their maintenance and repair will make it possible to generate integrated analytical assessments of the level of technological safety and to create a single multi-level vehicle control system. By optimising repair and re-construction schedules for infrastructure it will become possible to reduce the risks associated with operating transport systems without appreciably worsening the operating conditions of traffic flows. The introduction of new products can help to significantly increase the level of safety on transport, optimise road traffic and reduce the degree of wear on key resources. Knowledge of the operations of transport systems and infrastructure in difficult climatic and geological conditions, including Arctic and sub-Arctic zones, could be a competitive advantage for Russian workers and manufacturers.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Systems to increase oil extraction ratios, including targeted changes in the collecting properties of fields

Systems and methods to increase the oil extraction ratio, including a targeted change in their reservoir properties, in particular at depleted hydrocarbon deposits and low pressure gas deposits, will play a crucial role. These involve a combination of technological solutions, instruments and integrated groups aimed to have a chemical and physical impact on hydrocarbon­bearing formations in general and on individual components (hydrocarbons in beds, hydrocarbons themselves, water, etc.), leading to an increase in oil extraction. New technologies will not only help to increase the effectiveness of hydrocarbon extraction at operating deposits, but also to develop deposits with reserves which are hard to extract, including those which are currently regarded as exhausted. In the long-term, this will significantly increase the operating term of existing deposits and will push back the exhaustion of industrial stocks of traditional hydrocarbon raw materials by a decade. Some technological solutions will also be focused on recycling industrial carbon dioxide emissions.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Systems to diagnose the state of natural and dangerous man-made systems

Systems to diagnose the state of natural and dangerous man-made systems are critical for the prevention of emergencies. These systems include not only an instrument base, but also a means to process and visualise the results. Their application means that the amount of time required for diagnosis can be reduced and accuracy can be increased, which would greatly reduce the possible damage and increase the safety of the technosphere. The development of systems to diagnose the state of natural and dangerous man­made systems based on innovative equipment will lead to the creation of new markets in the field of instrumentation and software.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Systems Metabolic Engineering

Trace the products we buy and use every day—from plastics and fabrics to cosmetics and fuels—back to their origins, and you’ll find that the vast majority were made using stuff that came from deep underground. The factories that make the products of modern life do so, by and large, out of chemicals of various kinds. And those chemicals come from plants powered primarily by fossil fuels that transform feedstocks—also mainly petrochemicals—into myriad other compounds. It would be much better for the climate, and possibly better for the global economy as well, to make many of the chemical inputs to industry from living organisms instead of from oil, gas, and coal. We already use agricultural products in this way, of course—we wear cotton clothes and live in wooden houses—but plants are not the only source of ingredients. Microbes arguably offer even more potential, in the long term, to make inexpensive materials in the incredible variety of properties that we now take for granted. Rather than digging the raw materials of modern life from the ground, we can instead “brew” them in giant bioreactors filled with living microorganisms. For bio-based chemical production to really take off, it must compete with conventional chemical production on both price and performance. This goal now seems within reach, thanks to advances in systems metabolic engineering, a discipline that tweaks the biochemistry of microbes so that more of their energy and resources go into synthesizing useful chemical products. Sometimes the tweaks involve changing the genetic makeup of the organism, and sometimes it involves more complex engineering of microbial metabolism and brewing conditions as a system. With recent advances in synthetic biology, systems biology, and evolutionary engineering, metabolic engineers are now able to create biological systems that manufacture chemicals that are hard to produce by conventional means (and thus expensive). In one recent successful demonstration, microbes were customized to make PLGA [poly(lactate-co-glycolate)], an implantable, biodegradable polymer used in surgical sutures, implants, and prosthetics, as well as in drug delivery materials for cancer and infections. Systems metabolic engineering has also been used to create strains of yeast that make opioids for pain treatment. These drugs are widely needed in the world, and in particular in the developing world, where pain is insufficiently managed today. The range of chemicals that can be made using metabolic engineering is widening every year. Although the technique is not likely to replicate all of the products currently made from petrochemicals, it is likely to yield novel chemicals that could never be made affordably from fossil fuels—in particular, complex organic compounds that currently are very expensive because they must be extracted from plants or animals that make them in only tiny amounts. Unlike fossil fuels, chemicals made from microbes are indefinitely renewable and emit relatively little greenhouse gas—indeed, some could potentially even serve to reverse the flow of carbon from Earth to atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide or methane and incorporating it into products that are eventually buried as solid waste. As biochemical production scales up to large industrial use, it will be important to avoid both competing with food production for land use and also accidental releases of engineered microorganisms into the environment. Although these highly engineered microbes will likely be at a great disadvantage in the wild, it’s best to keep them safely in their tanks, happily working away at making useful stuff for the benefit of humanity and the environment.

2016

Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016

World Economic Forum (WEF)

Systems biology and computational modelling/simulation of chemical and biological systems

For improved healthcare and bio-based manufacturing, it is essential to understand how biology and chemistry work together. Systems biology and computational modelling and simulation are playing increasingly important roles in designing therapeutics, materials and processes that are highly efficient in achieving their design goals, while minimally impacting on human health and the environment.

2012

The top 10 emerging technologies for 2012

World Economic Forum (WEF)

System-based Technology for Particulate Matter Control

(Definition) Measures, classifies, samples, purifies, predicts, and monitors PM10 in the atmosphere to allow people to engage in daily activities safely. (Application) Particulate matter prediction and monitoring alert system; portable guide programs for Particulate matter measurement and management; particulate matter removal (purification) system for indoor environments.

2016

KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2016

South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)

System of Global Economic Governance

The contemporary global economy bears little resemblance to the fragmented post-World War II period when the current global economic governance regime was constructed. Although institutions created 60 years ago have adapted, the IMF and the World Bank are struggling to become representative and to remain relevant. Efforts to develop global institutions that are structured, funded, and empowered to act as a stabilising force for international financial markets will continue.

2010

Global strategic trends - out to 2040

UK, Ministry of Defence

System approaches

The complexities of today’s problems require systemic change rather than simple, incremental responses. Technology, environmental challenges and citizens’ dissatisfaction with “business as usual” are all putting pressure on governments to change their working methods and reach beyond simple solutions and linear equations of cause and effect. This marks an innovative paradigm shift in governance. Rather than layering interventions on top of one another, the public sector should repack policies in ways that allow them to get to the real purpose of change and deliver value to citizens. Human wants, needs and desires are complex, and the systems created to satisfy them are even more so. If simple models are used to analyse them, they will produce simple answers. As human lives and the problems that affect them are intertwined, innovative working methods are needed that take this complexity into account and provide solutions that actually work. One way to address these challenges is to apply a more systemic approach to innovation.

2018

Embracing Innovation in Government: Global Trends 2018

OECD

Synthetic realities

There’s a new kind of reality on the block. Generated and mixed realities are blurring the boundaries of “truth” and challenging how we value it. As synthetic realities become more normalized in 2019, organizations should look past the drama and fear associated with them. Instead, they should hone new strategies to capitalize on their creative potential and manage the risk of unwittingly being featured in a synthetic reality created by someone else.

2019

Fjord trends 2019

Fjord